charging block: stay or go

I keep mine plugged in as do most. Short of a lightning hit you should be ok. That said I do have a whole house surge suppressor. Can’t be too careful.

 

No need to unplug. I have mine plugged to Kill-o-watt meter which is plugged to the wall 24/7/365 for 3+ years now. One thing is that having EVSE (the fancier name for the charging cable) plugged to a wall outlet consumes about 0.01kWh/day of electricity.

 

none at all. plugging and unplugging wears out the socket and plug

 

I commented on your another thread on the same topic. Prime charging cable | PriusChat

 

My Toyota 120 volt EVSE unit has been plugged into my 240 volt outlet for Over 11,000 hours.... Works Perfectly.


Rob43

 

Not to be specific.

Anything special about March 16, 2019?

Or just like 458 days as a round number .

 

I can't remember if I plugged into 240v at the end of Feb. or the beginning of March 2019.

So "roughly" 11,000 plus hours on the Toyota 120v EVSE.


Rob43

 

Just to add to the chorus, the charger that came with my 2012 PiP has been plugged in continuously (other than occasionally moving it or such) since November of 2012. I use it to charge both the 2012 PiP and the 2018 Prime. No issues yet.

 

A dissenting voice here. In lightning central where I live, I always unplug when not charging. Also, I've noticed on my meter that the EVSE consumes a surprisingly large amount of power when plugged in and not charging. About like a night light. It'll add up. But mostly I unplug in case of lightning.

 

My kill-a-watt meter connected to the EVSE tells me that OEM EVSE consumes 0.01kWh/day. Even at a very high electricity rate at my house, it is 0.21 cents a day, or 77 cents a year. At your rate, it's less than half of that. I would not sweat on that.

 

Ditto.

 

Ditto on the fact that the OEM EVSE consumes 0.01kWh/day to operate (which is literally nothing), or that you unplug it for lightning ?


Rob43

 

My L2 charger pulls about 4 watts IIRC, which comes to about 35 kWh per year. Rounding it to 10 cents/kWh, is about $3.50 per year. Not much at all. Till lightning takes it out ... or worse yet, gets through it to the car it it's charging in a storm. I'm not saying anyone has to unplug it. I'm saying I unplug it.

 

I guess, I should unplug ALL electric appliances from the outlet during a lightning storm, but I don't. In case of a direct hit, wouldn't the main service plate get fried first? Does the whole house surge protection device really work on such direct hit?

 

Hard to say. Lightning is pretty unpredictable. One time I got hit and it took out the garage door opener and the answering machine. (Obviously a long time ago. LOL!) Another time was down in Honduras at the radio station. It hit so close that my wife said she saw "fire" come out of an outlet in the kitchen and we both heard the next door neighbor scream. But no damage at the house. However, it took out the transceiver for our studio-transmitter link (STL) about 150 yards away and took us off the air.

My TV and other entertainment stuff is on a 1,000 kVa UPS that has surge protection. Computer is on another 800 kVa UPS with surge protection. So far, so good. But I figure that if either gets blasted I have a good excuse to get an upgrade.

 

I no longer have desktop computers, except for a very old all-in-one machine. All the others are laptops and tablets, a total of over 10 devices, that are not connected to the wall all the time. TV and other pieces of audio/video equipments are connected to a surge-protection strip but I am not sure how protective those strips are against lightning. Probably the most expensive electrical appliance we have connected to the wall 24/7 is not the PRIME's charge cord, but any one of the kitchen appliances, range, refrigerator, dishwasher, cloth washer, and dryer. There is also an electrically controlled boiler which would cost over $10K to replace, but with the lightning surge, I would think only electrical parts are prone to damage which would be much cheaper to replace.

 

I don't mean this as a cavalier statement.....but it anything in my home gets hit by a lightening strike (I've never experienced one) I will just upgrade the items that gets hit.


Rob43